Making a noise about the art of youth

Noise, a national arts festival that showcases the work of young Australians, is on across the country this month.

Rather than taking place in galleries, theatres and concert halls, Noise is happening on TV and radio, in print and in cyberspace. More than 80 media and arts organisations, including ABC television and radio, Channel Ten and HQ magazine are giving air time and column space to the music, writing, photography, illustration, film and design of the nation's youth.

The festival is run this way partly out of financial necessity. Its executive producer, Brandon Saul, says he must reach young people all over the country with a budget of $6 million, about two-thirds that of the Melbourne Festival.

The strategy seems to be paying off, with the festival website, noise.net.au, which houses much of the work, attracting 25 million hits in the three months since it was launched in March (enough to destroy one of the festival's servers). Visitors stayed on the site for an average of 30 minutes.

The fact that the festival is media-based means that more people can participate. More than 7000 Australians aged 25 and under have submitted work to the festival. Saul expects that figure to reach 10,000 by the time the festival wraps up at the end of the month. But does he really believe that the internet and mass media can replace traditional cultural venues?

"We're not trying to replace physical galleries, live theatre, and you can certainly never replace live music," he says. "I think it's a natural adjunct to an already healthy arts environment."

Among the highlights of this year's festival is Freedom to Speak (freetospeak.org), an interactive online presentation that draws attention to the plight of Vietnamese dissidents who have been persecuted for criticising their government. The work, by 24-year-old designer Hoang Vo, is part of the Digital Allsorts project, a series of works by young people from non-English speaking backgrounds. Vo hopes his piece will encourage Australians to be more outspoken: "We have this total freedom to do whatever we want, but ¤ most of us don't take that and do stuff with it. Whereas in Vietnam ... people would just die for the opportunity to express what they feel."

In 3 Minutes Happiness, Melbourne-based artist Estelle Ihasz, 23, explores the clash of Zen philosophy and consumerism in Japan through a series of photographs taken while she was on student exchange. Ihasz says the best thing about Noise is that, through the media, it takes visual art to audiences who might not otherwise see it.

Jonathan Chong, 24, also from Melbourne, whose drawings and photography will be published in several Noise projects, says the festival has encouraged him to get his work out of his sketchbook and in front of people. "Feedback's really important to me," he says.

Twenty-one-year-old writer Melanie Joosten, whose words and photographs feature in several Noise projects, sees the festival as an outlet for edgy experimental writing that is difficult to get published elsewhere: "With Noise you can do anything and they actually publish it," she says.

Joosten believes there is a need for a media festival devoted specifically to young people's work. "People don't really quite take you seriously enough. It's sort of like you're always an emerging artist, you never get to be an artist, and Noise lets you be an artist," she says.

Saul says part of the problem is that Australian media are aimed at older people.

"You only have to look at the ABC axing Fly TV ¤ there literally isn't anything, apart from Rage on a Saturday night, for people between the age of 15 and 35."

But he rejects theories about media organisations conspiring to keep the young out.

"I think it's a mistake to think that people are plotting against young people in institutions. It's just there's difficulties at their end in meeting young people, including them in the process, and I think, in that regard, Noise is an incremental force for change."

The festival is still accepting submissions for some projects. For details, visit noise.net.au.